PTS Update 26 - Feedback Thread for Vampire & Werewolf

Ozymandias_13

Thevampirenight wrote: »

No one but those roleplaying as a vampire will go to stage four. It will just be the same as it is now and people will not feed they just won't its not worth doing. Heck even the 5% alone would likely draw a lot of cures because that isn't worth it either. For them so that is why this ability cost weakness is so stupid.

Exactly. They say they don't want people to just passively stay at stage 4, but now they'll passively stay at stage one.

If they reverse the stage weaknesses (health regeneration, ability cost if they even keep that, fire) and maybe even reduce the stage progress time to 3 hours people will actively feed to keep their stage up between dungeons. It will be active, and the penalties minimal at stage 4. A well fed vampire is a powerful one... You don't eat then suddenly become an emaciated invalid.

Wuuffyy

Qbiken wrote: »

WEREWOLF FEEDBACK UPDATE 2:

Pounce
As said during the first 2 weeks of PTS testing, this skill needs to get reworked so werewolfs aren´t locked out of using their gap closer for 5 seconds after using it the first time. The mechanic with Carnage is interesting and I´m happy it got added to werewolfs, but if the price you´ve to pay is being unable to gap close once every 5 seconds, then I´d rather not have the skill being reworked at all.

Previous suggestions regarding this skill has been to make it work differently depending on how close you´re to your target. While that might work in a 1v1, I´ve a strong feeling it will malfunction in a situation with many targets. My new suggestion is to make Brutal/Feral Carnage apply when the gapcloser connects to its target. Feral pounce remains a pure singel target damage skill, while Brutal Pounce still keep its AoE element.

Hircine´s Bounty/Fortitude/Rage
Now before I continue explaining why this skill needs to get reworked, I want to clarify that I´ve no problem with the kiss curse of Hircine´s Rage. Getting Major Berserk but getting 23% extra damage taken is a fair trade off and I hope ZOS uses this approach for other classes and skills in the future.

As it stands right now, I´ve no real problem with Hircine´s Fortitude. Hircine´s Rage however is still absolutely garbage from both a PvE and PvP perspective. Did some werewolf duels with @Chrlynsch on the PTS. Tried both Hircine´s Rage and Hircine´s Fortitude. After our duels I checked my combat metrics to see how many times I managed to activate the additional effects (Major Berserk and getting the extra 3k stamina back). The avarage duel lasted anywhere between 5-10 minutes.

With Hircine´s Rage I managed to get the major berserk buff twice during a few 5-7 minute duels, and one of those times was right after the duel started.

With Hircine´s Fortitude I managed to see the extra "stamina gain proc" around 5-6 times during a 5 minute duel.

I really don´t see the point of having powerful extra effects on Hircine´s Rage if you´re never going to benefit from it. Only time you´ll ever be able to get the major berserk buff is when you´re out of combat or run between objectives. Why do you make a combat related buff almost impossible to get while being in actual combat, but super easy to get when out of combat?

As suggested before, lower the HP threshhold to 80% or higher in order to get the major berserk to proc, or let it proc from overhealing (aka whenever you reach 100% HP or "higher").

Piercing Howl
This skill remains bugged and doesn´t do 25% more damage vs targets who are facing you. However, it still does 25% more damage vs feared targets as stated in the description of the skill.

General feedback
Why are so many skills appealing to improve the stamina sustain for werewolfs?
- Feral Pounce gives stamina back
- Hircine´s Bounty (with morhps), assuming you manage to proc it. Then we´ve Hircine´s Fortitude that adds up to 666 more stamina recovery depending on the potency of the heal.

Werewolf doesn´t struggle with sustaining their stamina. The biggest pain point since the cost increase with Scalebreaker has been how expensive the heal is. I´m fine with having to invest something into magicka sustain to manage my heal, but the amount of effort and trade offs you´re forced to make in order to be able to sustain your heal in PvP is beyond absurd. Remove some of the excessive stamina sustain from either Feral Pounce or Hircine´s Bounty/Fortitude and give it something that makes managing the magicka a Little less harsh.

Agreed.
And I didn’t even think, but yeah. You can only gap close once every 5 secs. This is looking like another bad patch for WW.

Cameron991

XomRhoK wrote: »

Some more ideas, without much hope that it will be implemented, but to show how it could be done.

1) Blood Frenzy. Moved to passives: Increse your weapon and spell damage up to 1200 based on your missing Health.
It will free skill slot for another active skill, AOE damage, DOT or gap closer, for example. Anyway, in my opinion, Blood Frenzy will be used similar to passive, it will be toggled on before gank or burst, or Health loss will be bypassed by some item set or healing passives of some classes and will never be toggled off during fight. Also 1200 wp/sp damage can be replaced by more damage and healing done stats, to also power Vampiric Drain skill, because it healing power don't scales from spell damage. With my suggestion gankers can just lower their health before gank and bursts can be timed with health decrease, but overall this skill as a passive will shift from ganks and bursts to helping vampire to survive, become hard to kill, as it should be, in my opinion.

2) Mist Form. Moved to passive: When you use block you dissolve into a dark mist, reducing your damage taken by 75%, entering this form removes and grants immunity to all disabling and immobilization effects and you can move with normal speed. You use magicka for block and while you holding block your Magicka Recovery is disabled.
Again it will free slot for another active skill, maybe real AOE damage instead of Blood Mist. Basically it become magicka block, but because it's a passive player can just don't put skill points into it and leave stamina block. It will act similar to Elusive MIst, additional speed and restriction to heal can be added based on balance. It will need work to make proper visual effects to using skills while blocking, but it can be done, some smoke/mist around 3D model while player performs skill.

3) Bat Swarm dash. High level passive or item set, 5pc bonus: When you use roll dodge you are turning into swarm of bats, additionally to standart functionality of roll dodge you also damage all enemies at your path for X magic(or stamina) damage.
If you can't put such skill into standart vampire skills put it at least as item set, at vampire centric chapter there is not a single vampire themed item set... Make something similar at least for next DLC.

I love these suggestions! Anything that’s that let’s me feel more like a vampire and gives me more to work with is welcomed bc rn in pts I don’t feel like a vampire with these changes

MopeyHat

Can we expect to see vampire or werewolf changes or updates next week? Perhaps things are a bit behind due to current events?

Stravokov

if their goal is to reduce the amount of people playing vampires for just the passives, they could have easily achieved that goal by making the +20% ability coast penalty activate when not loading the full 5 vampire active skills on your weapon bars. the current system punishes the player wanting to play as a vampire.

Aznox

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

This is the official feedback thread for the Vampire and Werewolf changes. Specific feedback that the team is looking for includes the following:

[*] Werewolf

• Is your play pattern as a werewolf different with these changes?
• Do you find playing a werewolf as enjoyable as what’s currently live?

[*] Do you have any other general feedback?
[/list]

Werewolf changes are very well thought, they just need a few but very important fixes, as already mentioned by Qbiken and Chrlynsch :

- 2 steps leap is a regression because it prevents aggressively chasing an opponent, while that should be in werewolf's essence.

- the 100% health condition for major berserk need to be lowered a bit, or it will never be met outside of a dummy parse.

- the increased heavy attack speed, while working on it's own (from around 2s to around 1.33sec, starting from the 2nd HA after roar), cannot be used when weaving skills (animations slow you to around 1.7sec/cast)

wills43b14_ESO

Does the skill line feel up to date with the current modern game?
Does the skill line fit into your current build and feel useful? Do you primarily play as a Tank, Healer or DPS?


I will address these two points.
For the first one, it does not. It feels like you're trying to force something like the Werewolf where you're either "all in" on the vamp skills/skill-line or you're not a vamp at all. It's very hard to effectively blend vamp and non-vamp with the sustain and increased damage issues. On that note, effective use of vamp skills requires melee range, increased cost to non-vamp skills (meaning sustain is awful unless you use all vamp skill), increased fire damage, and inflicting massive amounts of damage on yourself (and preventing healers from doing their jobs). At the same time, it adds a tremendous amount of skill gap, something ZOS has wanted to get rid of in the modern game.

For the second point (as a DPS main) the vampirism skills do not mesh with current builds well (or theory-crafted builds for that matter). Due to the sustain reasons and damage taken reasons stated above, vamp skills will be useful in a very niche # of applications, meaning you will only want to be a vamp for a small amount of content (obviously the high-end will find ways to incorporate this into most content, but it will be VERY bait for the vast majority).

That brings me to some general feedback. Please, for convenience, add a "Stage 0." As it stands, you will have to constantly cure vampirism and reinfect yourself to participate in content. It is useful in a couple places, but flat out unusable in most places, meaning you will NEED to constantly reinfect and cure yourself (when not usable, the extra fire damage and sustain hit is too detrimental). A stage 0, which prevents ability and passive usage, but also negates all side-effects, would effectively solve this issue.



Tl;dr: you're either all in on vamp and vamp skills or you're not a vamp at all, it adds a significant power gap, and it's only viable for a limited amount of combat. Since it's only useful in a few places, you will be constantly curing and reinfecting yourself if you want to use it. A "Stage 0", which negates all side-effects and renders passives/skills unusable would be a nice quality of life addition.

wills43b14_ESO

In addition, can you imagine the one-hit gank builds and bomb builds with the vamp skill-line and Thrassian stranglers? I'm not ready for that PvP nightmare again.

XomRhoK

While in Swarming Scion form bats around Scion glow too bright and inconsistent, the glow comes sometimes from the head, sometimes from the body, sometimes from the wings, it creates feel that bats made from foil.

I think, this glow need to be removed at all, because i don't remember any troubles with Devouring Swarm ultimate at Live servers. But if you realy want to keep it, make it less bright and more consistent, glowing eyes, for example.

Oathunbound

wills43b14_ESO wrote: »

Does the skill line feel up to date with the current modern game?
Does the skill line fit into your current build and feel useful? Do you primarily play as a Tank, Healer or DPS?


I will address these two points.
For the first one, it does not. It feels like you're trying to force something like the Werewolf where you're either "all in" on the vamp skills/skill-line or you're not a vamp at all. It's very hard to effectively blend vamp and non-vamp with the sustain and increased damage issues. On that note, effective use of vamp skills requires melee range, increased cost to non-vamp skills (meaning sustain is awful unless you use all vamp skill), increased fire damage, and inflicting massive amounts of damage on yourself (and preventing healers from doing their jobs). At the same time, it adds a tremendous amount of skill gap, something ZOS has wanted to get rid of in the modern game.

For the second point (as a DPS main) the vampirism skills do not mesh with current builds well (or theory-crafted builds for that matter). Due to the sustain reasons and damage taken reasons stated above, vamp skills will be useful in a very niche # of applications, meaning you will only want to be a vamp for a small amount of content (obviously the high-end will find ways to incorporate this into most content, but it will be VERY bait for the vast majority).

That brings me to some general feedback. Please, for convenience, add a "Stage 0." As it stands, you will have to constantly cure vampirism and reinfect yourself to participate in content. It is useful in a couple places, but flat out unusable in most places, meaning you will NEED to constantly reinfect and cure yourself (when not usable, the extra fire damage and sustain hit is too detrimental). A stage 0, which prevents ability and passive usage, but also negates all side-effects, would effectively solve this issue.



Tl;dr: you're either all in on vamp and vamp skills or you're not a vamp at all, it adds a significant power gap, and it's only viable for a limited amount of combat. Since it's only useful in a few places, you will be constantly curing and reinfecting yourself if you want to use it. A "Stage 0", which negates all side-effects and renders passives/skills unusable would be a nice quality of life addition.

The people who will benefit the least/get worse from these changes are support classes. Sustain as a stage 4 vampire is not bad at all as long as you are using the vampire spammable as your spammable. Ive tested mutiple combos of class and vamp skill (i was using magblade) and not once did i gave any sustain issues whether parsing or group content.

Now if you are trying to use no vamp skills at all at stage 4 then yea ita impossible to sustain but i think thats what they intended. Problem is, is that vamp skills are heavily geared towards dps and offer nothing major to support builds in either active skills or passives. The main thing that needs removed for these changes to be fine overall is the cost increase at stage one. There are some instances where melee just can't compete with ranged dps and mag melee can't menuver as well as stam melee but you have to deal with more cost for 0 benefit for combat at stage 1 and that just seems wrong.

Also on pts i was using same gear on live in testing perf false gods, maelstrom infern, mother sorrow jewls and weapon, zann. Even replacing false god with perf sorria i still had no sustain issues using blood for blood as my spammable. Everthing else skillwise was copy/paste from live

HoyaCarnosa

I dont think we should get rid of the increased skill costs for non vampire abilities, BUT i think they should revert how it works, currently "higher flame dmg received", "lower health regeneration" AND "higher non vampire skill costs" all increase with your vampire stage ( 1 is lowest, 4 is highest), so as someone stated in another thread: no one will want to go past stage 1.

That means no vampire will want to kill innocents to increase their stage ( wow peaceful vampires everywhere), my suggestion: keep the way "higher flame dmg received" and "lower health regeneration" works (well maybe cap "lower health regeneration" at 75% and up the "higher flamedmg received" a bit), let it increase with the stages.

Now to the "higher skill costs" for non vampire abilities: i think the "higher skill costs for non vampire abilities" should be HIGH ON STAGE 1 and LOW ON STAGE 4, it would make sense: a vampire with stage 1 is weak because he has not "eaten" in a while, so it should be more complicated for him/ her to use the "mortal abilities", while at stage 4 he / she is stronger and has more power to use his"mortal abilities", means if the vampire wants to use the mortal abilities he / she MUST KILL and FEED on innocents ( would make sense for me).

Sasha1378

I agree with the must kill and feed. I mean, why a tree that penalize itself for going according to the role? A sated vampire should indeed be sane and able to use all forms of magic efficiently, while a starved one would become savage due to thirst and therefore use it's natural instinct and skills instead of normal ones.

If you introduced a system that penalize feeding (and using certain skills) in public, why make it so we don't want to feed anyway?

An idea would be to make starved vampires unable to use non vampire skills on starved stage, with a set of skills dedicated to this stage. I'm not sure if WW couldn't use the same principle for their transformation. This way, we'd keep our 2 main skill bars for normal play (fed (non starved stages) for vampire, and non ulti for WW). It would force the dynamic of feeding and break the law on a vampire, to get stronger/sane, and would push the VAMPIRE to FEED. I mean, what is a vampire that doesn't feed on blood??

Vampires have always been after blood, to stay alive. But in the current PTS form, they are mere creatures hiding in plain sight, with detriments to all their non vampire abilities. Why make it so hard for stage 1 if the plan is to make them blend? It makes it not desirable to be one. And for the other stages, which come too easy (idea of a certain number of bites to evolve to next stage and stay there), why make a fully fed aka normally strong vampire unable to regen itself at all? Isn't blood their source of power/heath?

You may have noticed I didn't talk about numbers here. That's because all about PTS vampire feels wrong to me atm, and I want a whole other iteration of vampires to be made and balanced after that on PTS. I won't bother to play with the current PTS vampire as it's too counter intuitive and out of sense for me. Why bother making vampire in a game if you don't give players an incentive to play as one?

Saelent

A starved vampire should look starved, a dated vampire should look dated - not like a blood fiend.

There should be something to push people into wanting to be at the later stages of vampirism.

Idea!
What if health regen lowered (by 75%) at stage 4, flame damage increased too, but the higher cost was actually 20% for a stage 1 vampire? Of course this would include the cost decreases for vampire skills, ‘easier’ to use when starving.
Vampires would be forced to feed and keep themselves topped up for access to most skills, but starving stages would make the skills more tempting to use.

XomRhoK

One more suggestion about horns. If you strongly against removing horns from one of the morphs of Blood Scion, make at least one morph with less sticking out horns, for example, like a crown around head.

And one more time my wishes about at least one morph of Blood Scion (all must be in one morph together, not separately in different morphs):
- no weapon, no weapon skills, attack with claws (similar to Bloodknight NPC model, but with less armor)
- no or smaller horns
- no glow around model
- less bulky shoulders and hips armor
- downscaled in size by 10%

Alexium

Probably bug but I can't be sure. Werewolf form (transformation in a hidden place) in a city causes the bounty when show yourself to people. It is ok. But people are still feared and may apply another bounty even after returning to the normal form.

Lintashi

I played with both freshly started character, and copied one. All transferred correctly. Tutorial was interesting, however, I was able to finish it using only light attacks and one spam skill. Although it is understandable, since we have to get skill points while playing, it leads newbies to false assumption, that almost any content is doable with light attack and occasionally spamming 1-2 skills. Then, they go into dungeons, and drama starts.
As a healer, I am disappointed by new vampire. I expected to have at least 1 skill to be useful to healers as return for other healing skills costing more, and yet, I cannot find it. It is also severely contradicts lore, since basic non-vampire healer now have not 1(flame resistance) but 2 advantages over vampires. Every lore paints vampire as a monster to be feared, yet it currently feels weaker than any men or mer, with sneaking as only good thing it can do. It makes me feel weaker even at stage one, and I absolutely have no wish to progress my vampire out of stage 1. I also tried my damage on my healer, since I sometimes do overland content and world bosses. Currently I use Ricochet Skull as spammable, tried to use drain instead, and got my damage lesser than before.
Overall, if it remains unchanged, I can predict, that many people will cure their vampires to remain competitive, and we will have a year of vampires without any vampires save for several roleplayers.
Edit: tied new interactions with Bloody Maras. Kinda strange, that one makes you go all the way to stage 4, and the other only gets 1 stage down. Also, while quest givers talked to me at stage 4, traders do not. It kinda breaks my immersion, since I use Arctic skin, to be able to look like slightly paler character, but still looking like mortal, just to be able to blend in. Traders calling me a monster right through any disguise is immersion breaking. Also, to make them talk, I must use Mesmerize skill. As healer, I just do not have extra slot on my skillbar to place it. Another reason never to go past stage 1. I believe, that many builds, like tanks, and even some dps, will not have any reason to go to stage 4, and will not use this skill, which, otherwise, have little usage, because you need to be face to face, and this is not always possible even in pvp and pve. Plaese, add decent spammable ranged attack, and atleast something useful to tanks and healers.

Qbiken

Sated Fury needs to have a upper cap of how much it can heal for after it's been toggled off. Make the maximum heal a % of your max HP and be done with it.

Qbiken

Week 4 of PTS and still no updates or bug fixes for werewolfs. Wasn't this supposed to also be a QoL update for werewolfs as well as a vampire patch @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_RichLambert @ZOS_BrianWheeler

What's the point of having a QoL patch for werewolfs if all the feedback that is provided simply gets ignored?

Will there even be any changes for werewolfs or is everyone who goes on PTS to test them wasting their time?

Wuuffyy

Qbiken wrote: »

Week 4 of PTS and still no updates or bug fixes for werewolfs. Wasn't this supposed to also be a QoL update for werewolfs as well as a vampire patch @ZOS_GinaBruno ?

What's the point of having a QoL patch for werewolfs if all the feedback that is provided simply gets ignored?

Will there even be any changes for werewolfs or is everyone who goes on PTS to test them wasting their time?

Right like the heck?! Why not just deny known werewolf players from testing or reading PTS notes. It is not at all like we are listened to anyway.

There is a game breaking bug for werewolf rn. Making it unusable. However, you have found time to drop percentages down for ridiculous vampire passives. Nice.

MopeyHat

With the vampire updates today...I'll probably still be curing my PvE tank and sticking to roleplay with my magDK dps vampire. There just isn't any benefit to the skill line for tanks that makes the cost increase worth having, which makes me real sad

Cameron991

Honestly have to admit I’m happy they at least lowered the extra non vamp ability cost I still think overall the active skills are just so situational and they lack the kit to make a full vampiric build, and they just overall don’t look or feel like vampires. I’m happy they lowered the ability cost but can you please somehow make changes to abilities to allow us to play as vamps for any role. I please add this npc vamp abilities to our kit it will make us have everything we need while also looking more vampiric, also why is our vampire cost abilities at stage 4 cut in half it literally makes it pointless to be a stage 4 vampire... no abilities to work with anything but gankers increases non vamp abilities and only 24% reduced vamp costs... we need more vamp abilities to make vampire better for everyone Imo

XomRhoK

Seems with 6.0.3 patch you make new sound effects to vampire abilities. Doubt that you will change anything anymore but here my feedback:
1) Eviscerate and morphs. New sound transmits well speed of hand move, but does not transmit a hit at all. It sounds like you always miss and hitting the air. Maybe you need to add some torn flesh sound on hit, or add some weight to the sound.
2) Blood Frenzy and morphs. Sound of activation not match the visuals and overall vampiric theme, it sounds like hollow pipe. Sound of deactivation sounds normal and match visuals, but visuals themselves not very "Blood" or "Frenzy" and hard to see in fight.
3) Vampiric Drain and morphs. Seems you added new sound which is trying to reproduce sound of flowing liquid from one body to another, but at least part of it sounds wrong, it sounds more like boiling liquid not flowing. Just keep sound from Invigorating Drain skill form live servers, it already sounds perfect, like flowing liquid.
4) Mesmerize and Stupefy Seems ok.
Hypnotize. Sounds ok for it visuals, but visuals themselves look more like magic explosion, don't know why this morph did not keep visual style of Mesmerize.
5) Mist Form and morphs. Now sound of activation and deactivation sounds more like wind, not like mist or smoke. Old sound from live servers were better.
Blood Mist. I like sound of hits.
6) Blood Scion and morphs. At the moment of transformation there is sound like some vase is crashed it sounds bad and unnecessary. Overall sound and new voice is good.
7) Unnatural movement passive. Again some bad hollow pipe sound in moments of activation and deactivation.

Aside from sound, I'm disappointed that you haven't changed some of the vampire skills, or at least their visual effects.

navystylz_ESO

Pendulum swing to far back the other way. I don't know why:

• Regular Ability Cost is now +3/+5/+8+12%, down from +5/+10/+15/+20%

Required for this to happen:

• Vampire Ability Cost is now -6/-10/-16/-24%, down from -10/-20/-30/-40%

Like what in the actual heck, ZOS. And in addition you broke an ability that didn't need breaking. I wanted to use simmering fury, but now you don't want cater to the people that want to use a whooping 2 abilities form vampire on their bar. Sated fury and perhaps the ultimate.

I can already tell I'm not going to have fun with this, and it's really the only thing that brought me back. Being a stage 4 vampire is now even more punishing than it was before, when the previous PTS already didn't give people a reason to be anything but Stage 1 or 2.

Really feeling I should just refund the chapter.

Paradisius

I feel like it was a good step forward to change the ability cost values to more reasonable numbers for more people to be able to use vampirism. However, the blood frenzy changes are overbearing. Through my own testing I found that Simmering Frenzy in 6.0.3 patch form is a morph hardly anyone will take. And Sated Fury will be taken with low uptimes. 20% cost increase per second after cutting the vampire cost reduction in half is overboard, and it puts to question why anyone would use this ability now.

I suggest that if you want to make the skill riskier to use, so its not used all of the time. Change the scaling from 20 > 10. Essentially leaving Simmering Frenzy as is prior to this patch, and adding more risk to Sated Fury so people are more enticed to use the self heal function of the ability

RavemasterCrow

navystylz_ESO wrote: »

Pendulum swing to far back the other way. I don't know why:

• Regular Ability Cost is now +3/+5/+8+12%, down from +5/+10/+15/+20%

Required for this to happen:

• Vampire Ability Cost is now -6/-10/-16/-24%, down from -10/-20/-30/-40%

.

So basically it's objectively worse than Live again? Because currently on Live that's basically the Amount of Vampire Ability Cost Reduction/Stage - it's capped at like... 21%, so it's fairly close. BUT, we're still getting ability cost increase and them changing some of the abilities and morphs to be less effective. FFS.

Anhedonie

Lol now vampire is just pure roleplay skill line.

KeiRaikon

Paradisius wrote: »

I suggest that if you want to make the skill riskier to use, so its not used all of the time. Change the scaling from 20 > 10. Essentially leaving Simmering Frenzy as is prior to this patch, and adding more risk to Sated Fury so people are more enticed to use the self heal function of the ability

Whole heartedly agree. By having the scaling at 10% while also causing it to stack as long as it remains toggled would make the skill pretty usable while keeping with what I think ZoS' intention is which is having a risky skill that people do have to manage instead of a buff that can have a very high uptime as long as you keep 1/2 HoTs on you.

navystylz_ESO

RavemasterCrow wrote: »

navystylz_ESO wrote: »

Pendulum swing to far back the other way. I don't know why:

• Regular Ability Cost is now +3/+5/+8+12%, down from +5/+10/+15/+20%

Required for this to happen:

• Vampire Ability Cost is now -6/-10/-16/-24%, down from -10/-20/-30/-40%

.

So basically it's objectively worse than Live again? Because currently on Live that's basically the Amount of Vampire Ability Cost Reduction/Stage - it's capped at like... 21%, so it's fairly close. BUT, we're still getting ability cost increase and them changing some of the abilities and morphs to be less effective. FFS.

Yes. I was really excited my my main, who I have had since early access as a Vampire Lord blood mage concept was going to be more of an actual vampire. I liked the original PTS version, albeit I thought the normal ability cost increase was a bit high. But nearly gutting the vampire costs by half and the fury change catered to the people who just wanted to use a couple passives and the fury skill. It's too punishing to be a stage 4 vampire.

I already requested a refund for my chapter and 6 months ESO plus.

XomRhoK

navystylz_ESO wrote: »

Like what in the actual heck, ZOS. And in addition you broke an ability that didn't need breaking. I wanted to use simmering fury, but now you don't want cater to the people that want to use a whooping 2 abilities form vampire on their bar. Sated fury and perhaps the ultimate.

Paradisius wrote: »

However, the blood frenzy changes are overbearing. Through my own testing I found that Simmering Frenzy in 6.0.3 patch form is a morph hardly anyone will take. And Sated Fury will be taken with low uptimes. 20% cost increase per second after cutting the vampire cost reduction in half is overboard, and it puts to question why anyone would use this ability now.

I suggest that if you want to make the skill riskier to use, so its not used all of the time. Change the scaling from 20 > 10. Essentially leaving Simmering Frenzy as is prior to this patch, and adding more risk to Sated Fury so people are more enticed to use the self heal function of the ability

As i said before i think that core concept of this skill is bad and not vampiric at all(it encourage to use not vampiric heal and feels like berserker's skill not vampire's). The only ones who will absolutly benefit from this skill will be gankers, bombers and snipers. New and not experienced players will often die, because of this ability, that will lead to frustration. Average players,depending on balance, will overcome HP loss and will never turn off this ability during fight(used like passive) or will use it as periodical buff, but requiring much more attention and control than regular buffs, visuals almost not readable in fight, because it out of GCD you often don't understand did you turn it on or off, all this will lead to a chore or frustaration again and only for top players it wouldn't be a problem.
So it will end up as "passive" skill, that occupy skill slot on vampire skill line, that could be given for another active skill or it will end up as skill for top players and gankers. Don't sounds interesting for me, especially with deficit of acive/spammable skills at vampire skill line.
All what this skill gives could be easily be transferred to passives. For example, if you want to keep gameplay around HP loss, then all vampire skills may cost resource and some Health to use, and when you Health is lowering you recieve additional power, 100-0% HP -> 0-1200 wp/sp damage(in fact Blood for Blood skill already fulfil this type of gameplay). Or, if you want more encourage hit and run gameplay give vampires some active dash or allow to almost instantly go to sneak and adjust "Strike from shadows" passive.

wills43b14_ESO

The Feed passive is in a better state, but the skills are still lackluster. Overall, sated/simmering seems to be a PvP gank skill now.

The vamp spammable is HIGHLY damaging to class balance/identity in PvE. Most every class will attempt to run Blood For Blood if possible. For example, magsorcs probably don't want to use Blood For Blood as it cannot proc cfrags. However, (and this still needs testing) BfB might be stronger than a spammable + cfrags, in which case we will need to run conversion or mines to proc prophecy. Talk about destroying class identity.

The spammable and frenzy skill are not healthy. If you are dead set on a spammable, consider making something that will synergize with most class' toolkits. As an example: if you wish to keep BfB, turn arterial burst into a reverse execute. It will be VERY strong on most execute classes and synergize with the sorc theme very well. It even makes sense from a lore perspective as the vampire is draining more life/doing more damage to a healthier (more full of blood) victim.